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Treasure Hunters

By Andrew Finkel April 11, 2012 9:33 amApril 11, 2012 9:33 am

ISTANBUL — “Hajj: journey to the heart of Islam,” the British Museum’s recreation of Islam’s holy pilgrimage, has attracted much praise and a dash of controversy, as Huma Yusuf recently wrote on Latitude. Meanwhile, another interesting story related to the exhibit has percolated down to Turkey, the successor state to the empire that ruled over Mecca and Medina for centuries and once controlled the major pilgrimage routes.

Turkey was founded in the ashes of the Ottoman Empire, and its great museums – the Topkapi Palace and the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum – hold many of the important historical artifacts associated with the Hajj.

One such object the museum curators were happy to lend for the London show was an ancient mahmal, a tent-like structure that adorned the back of a camel as the symbol of the authority of a sultan. But the ministry of culture vetoed the loan.

The reason? Turkey is in the middle of a protracted battle with Britain over another ancient artifact.
Since 2005, Ankara has been demanding that the British Museum hand over a First Century B.C. stele, or stone slab, with a sculpted depiction of King Antiochus I Epiphanes that was excavated some time around 1920 by Leonard Woolley near the Syrian border. The British Museum has offered to loan the stele to the Turks, but the chances of giving it back permanently to Turkey – and thereby setting a precedent for Greece to reclaim the Elgin marbles – are slim. Yet Turkey is playing hard ball.

What a mistake. Turkey spends a sultan’s ransom in advertising itself as a tourist destination and lending its treasures to the Hajj exhibit would have been a smart way of doing this at the British Museum’s expense.

No one should dispute Turkey’s right to protect its own archaeological heritage from thieves. Nor should there be any question of Turkey’s obligation to recover objects smuggled abroad. But the effort and expense of fighting over long-lost objects in Britain would be better employed on improving the deplorable state of cultural management at home.

The destruction by treasure seekers around Turkey’s major archaeological sites is enormous, yet the government doesn’t take practical steps to stop it. For starters, Ankara should enforce existing laws meant to protect antiquities. The government could also ban the sale or licensing of metal detectors to stop treasure hunters from looting the countryside around archaeological sites. Moreover, there is no proper archaeological inventory for the much-visited site of Cappadocia in Central Anatolia or even for Istanbul. The authorities should see that such inventories are completed to protect properties from avaricious developers.

Instead of wallowing in cultural nationalism, Turkey should be protecting its treasures and attracting all the foreign expertise it can. It does no good to refuse to lend an object to a foreign museum – particularly for an exhibition that is trying to further understanding between faiths.